Prologue

Conclave did prom up right. It was a formal (black tie and evening gown) dance exclusively for juniors and seniors. It wasn’t something that would normally interest Alex due to the need to rent a tux. But everyone at school was going on about how it was one of those coming-of-age events you would regret missing if you passed it up. Or at least, that was what he was telling himself as he got dressed for the dance.

Alex had never intended to go since he was just a freshman. That was until Irina Mikhailov cornered him in an empty classroom and explained that he was going to prom. She was at the time going out with Caleb Hiatt, one of the princes of Conclave, so that pronouncement confused him.

Irina was one of the few people Alex was afraid of. Her father, Alexei, was the former boss of the Russian mob in Philadelphia. He was now semiretired and lived down the street from Alex. Alexei was known for being quite protective of his daughters. But Alex had another reason to be fearful of Irina: she was batshit crazy.

Ethan Brewer, the other prince of Conclave, had been her first victim after Alexei and his family moved to town in the fall. Ethan reminded everyone of a two-year-old Lab, full of bouncy energy and loving everybody. It was the loving part that was his undoing. It seemed that word of his extracurricular activities got back to Irina. Her mistake had been thinking the two of them were serious.

It all went down at lunch as Ethan was sharing his weekend exploits with the table. Irina waited until everyone was seated, then marched in and announced, “Ethan Brewer! You’re a dead man!”

The whole lunchroom sucked in their breaths as they waited for what was to come. Alex had told him to run, but Ethan shrugged it off. What was a hundred-pound girl going to do to him? After all, Ethan was a three-sport star and outweighed her by nearly a hundred pounds.

She’d marched up to the table on the side opposite where Ethan sat. Alex, aware of Irina’s craziness from the time they both lived in Philly, grabbed Nell and Ivy to pull them out of the line of fire. Ethan’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when Irina came over the table with a pencil in her hand. She looked like Norman Bates in the shower scene from Psycho.

Alex could almost hear the ’eeet eeet eeet’ as she used the pencil like a dagger. Ethan took three stabs before her pencil snapped as she embedded it in the palm of his hand. Everyone scrambled away because Ethan was bleeding like a stuck pig.

That was when her claws came out and raked his face. Ethan went from happy-go-lucky Lab to full-on psychotic pit bull in the blink of an eye. Alex dived over the table and tackled him before he could kill her. The scary part was that it took both Zac and Decker to hold Irina back.

“What the heck, Alex?!” Ethan complained.

“I warned you,” Alex reminded him.

“Yeah, but ... I guess you did.”

The amazing part—besides Irina not getting into trouble—was that the guys at Conclave High were all stupid boys: they still wanted to date Irina. Even Alex would admit that Irina was hot, but he felt the psycho part was just too much to even consider going out with her. Ethan had told him that the crazy was a plus behind closed doors. That made Alex shudder and wish Ethan hadn’t overshared.

So, Alex was on his guard when Irina trapped him in a classroom. He surreptitiously put his hand in his pocket where he kept his switchblade ... just in case.

“You’re going to ask my sister to prom.”

“She and I are just friends. Besides, we’re too young to get in. We’re both freshmen,” Alex said, putting the whole crazy idea to bed.

“At the door, you’ll be with me, and my sister will be Caleb’s date.”

“But—” Alex began, but Irina cut him off.

“I know you two say you’re just friends, but you like each other, and I’m tired of my sister moping around.”

Irina then laid it all out for him. He was to come up with an epic promposal and make sure everything would be perfect. That included a tuxedo with no weird ruffles or colors, a corsage, and all the trappings. Alex was to take her sister to the country club for dinner and be a perfect gentleman.

If he hadn’t had a crush on Natasha, he would’ve bailed.

Alex had witnessed several lame promposals. Ethan had simply slipped a card into Sandra’s locker. She claimed it was sooo romantic. Dawn almost got a black eye when her guy dropped a teddy bear down the stairwell and smacked her in the face. That epic fail got him a resounding ‘no.’ Kaitlyn received a delivery of chocolates during one of her classes.

Alex noticed that in every case, the guys were wusses and hadn’t asked the girls to go. So, he got Nell and Ivy to help him plan it, though he regretted opening his mouth not long after. The plan they devised was to happen at lunch. All Alex had to do was show up, and they would take care of the rest.

By the day it was going down, his two friends had told everyone but him exactly what was going on. He knew he was in trouble when he walked into the lunchroom and saw a trail of rose petals leading to their table.

Zac pointed to where he was supposed to stand, and then music came over the school’s loudspeakers. It was Birthrite’s newest love ballad that was climbing the charts. Then, the baseball team marched in on each side of the trail and faced each other. They raised their bats to make an arch for Natasha to walk through.

When she came in, Alex could see how excited she was. When she spotted him, Natasha squealed, ran into his arms, and almost choked him out.

“I think that’s a ‘yes,’” Decker said, causing everyone to cheer.

The big night had finally arrived. Natasha opened the door to let Alex in. He carried a corsage that perfectly matched her red dress—Irina had picked it out because she didn’t trust him to get it right. He sucked in his breath as he looked at his date because Natasha was smoking hot.

“Damn, you’re looking fine,” Alex said as he handed her the flowers, then leaned in and kissed her cheek.

“Alex. Of course, you know my sister ... and this is my mom.”

“I can see where you get your looks. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Mikhailov,” Alex said.

As he was kissing her mom’s cheek, a door opened, and Caleb and Mr. Mikhailov entered the foyer. Caleb was pale and looked like he might throw up. Irina looked unhappy as she glared at her dad.